The volume of data that companies have available to them today has never been greater, but jumping from system to system and combing through it all is easier said than done. To combat demand volatility and successfully anticipate developing events that might impact your business, you need to establish a comprehensive overview of an increasingly complicated network of systems and partners.

If we look at the typical end-to-end lifecycle of an order, we can see that it passes through several steps with a variety of different vendors taking responsibility at different stages. It’s only natural that businesses have outsourced and formed partnerships to establish global reach and ensure orders always reach customers on-time and in-full.

But juggling all these moving parts is a real challenge.

With 74% of more than 200 global companies surveyed by PwC stating that the number of entities in their supply chain has increased in the last three years, complexity is obviously a growing problem. In fact, 95% of respondents said that discrepancies between those entities are also increasing.

Staying on top of this web of partners and services is crucial.

Supply Chain Orchestration gives you the granular visibility you need to assess and optimize every single order. It also empowers you to manage by exception. By configuring your system and fine-tuning to establish specific rules for cost and customer experience, based on multiple potential fulfillment options, you can automate normal everyday operations and maintain consistently great service.

With the power to make changes to parameters based on changing regulatory requirements or business needs, you have the agility you need to evolve and improve over time. Most of the orders will be handled automatically, but for that small percentage that require more attention, alerts are sent to the right people on your team who can bring their expertise to bear and rectify the situation.

Management by exception is great for operational efficiency, but it’s still a reactive system.

Because Supply Chain Orchestration allows you to collect, visualize, and analyze every piece of data about every order from every system across your network, you can extract even greater value. With predictive analytics, historical data can help you understand the flow of demand, anticipate events, and mitigate risks. You could pull in pertinent data from anywhere, as long as its digitized.

The goal is to start generating predictive insights that can flag potential issues before they become a problem, allowing you to, say, re-route orders or tweak inventory levels to sidestep them. If there’s a roadblock ahead, predictive insights can warn you long before you reach it. By proactively tackling potential exceptions and outliers, it’s possible to maintain the highest standards of service.

Supply Chain Orchestration can help you identify and tackle these issues before they grow, cutting down on wastage and reducing the risk of negative impact. By looping feedback into the system, it’s possible to continually improve it, ensuring that you strike the ideal balance between customer experience and cost-effective operations.